Indigenous Peoples in Canada

The year is 1870, and the last great smallpox epidemic is sweeping the prairies. After witnessing the death of his entire family, White Cloud, a young Plains Cree boy, summons the strength to deliver himself from the terrible disease and journey to a new home. Readers also reconnect with Edwin, a lost young man on his own quest who must summon his own courage and travel to confront the main source of his own despair.

Educator Informaiton
Scars is Book 2 in the graphic-novel series 7 Generations.

7 Generations is an epic, 4-book graphic novel series by David Alexander Robertson that spans three centuries and seven generations. The central character in the series is Edwin. Edwin, an Indigenous teenager, must learn of his family’s past if he is to have any future. The impact of his journey of discovery, and the revelation that follows, will change his life.

The stories that run through 7 Generations explore the following historical concepts:

• Social customs
• Political structures
• Plains Cree culture
• Spiritual practices and rituals

Recommended for grades 9–12.

Books in this series include:
Book 1: Stone 
Book 2: Scars
Book 3: Ends/Begins
Book 4: The Pact

This resource is also available in French: 7 Générations: Volume 2.

Additional Information
30 pages | 6.50" x 10.00"

Stone introduces Edwin, a young man who must discover his family's past if he is to have any future. Edwin learns of his ancestor Stone, a young Plains Cree man, who came of age in the early 19th century. Following a vision quest, Stone aspires to be like his older brother, Bear, a member of the Warrior Society. But when Bear is tragically killed during a Blackfoot raid, Stone, the best shot and rider in his encampment, must overcome his grief and avenge his brother's death. Only then can he begin a new life with his bride, Nahoway. It is Stone's story that drives Edwin to embark on his own quest.

Educator & Series Information
Stone is the first book in the graphic novel series, 7 Generations. 7 Generations is an epic, 4-book graphic novel series by David Alexander Robertson that spans three centuries and seven generations. The central character in the series is Edwin. Edwin, an Indigenous teenager, must learn of his family’s past if he is to have any future. The impact of his journey of discovery, and the revelation that follows, will change his life.

The stories that run through 7 Generations explore the following historical concepts:

• Social customs
• Political structures
• Plains Cree culture
• Spiritual practices and rituals

Recommended for grades 9–12.

Books in this series include:
Book 1: Stone 
Book 2: Scars
Book 3: Ends/Begins
Book 4: The Pact

This resource is also available in French as 7 Générations: Volume 1.

Additional Information
30 pages | 6.50" x 10.00"

The short stories celebrate healing through modern day rituals that honour ancestry. Powerful voices are spoken, a violent aboriginal gangster has an astonishing spiritual experience, a single mother is protected, and a group of young men pay tribute to a friend. Stories are set in the NWT, Vancouver, and rural BC.

A River Lost is the familiar story of an ancient culture infringed upon and altered forever by modern technology. It is the story of how the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam led to the destruction of a way of life for members of the Arrow Lakes Tribe. Sinee mat and her great-grandmother Toopa tell the engaging story of life on the Columbia River, before and after the dam.

Additional Information
32 pages | 8.50" x 11.00"

Chiwid was a Tsilhqot'in woman, said to have shamanistic powers, who spent most of her adult life "living out" in the hills and forests around Williams Lake, BC. Chiwid is the story of this remarkable woman told in the vibrant voices of Chilcotin oldtimers, both native and non-native.

Reviews
"Chiwid was a Chilcotin woman who lived outside, self-sufficiently for most of her life and moving camps with the seasons. Chiwid is a collection of oral histories about the woman, her family and what life was like in the Chilcotin area of British Columbia in the early to mid-1900s." - The Association of Book Publishers of BC. BC Books for BC Schools. 2009-2010.

Additional Information
128 pages | 8.00" x 9.00" 

Authenticity Note: This book's author is not Indigenous; however, the book has the Authentic Indigenous Text label because it contains stories collected by the author from Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. It is up to readers to determine if this book will work as an authentic text for their purposes.

With the young person in mind, these strong, clear and encouraging poems from Rita Joe speak directly to all of us, a testament to courage and her hope for a better world. Down-to-earth and often humorous and a world honoured Mi'kmaw elder and Order of Canada recipient, in the book Rita Joe passes her torch to the young.

Born in 1932, in Whycocomagh, Rita Joe lived a hardscrabble existence, from foster home to foster home, experiences that helped her decide to admit herself to Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, a place most Mi'kmaq people had come to dread. It was a rare example of the child choosing Shubie, "to better myself," to get an education. That same determination compelled her to write about her personal combination of traditional Mi'kmaw spiritualism and Catholic faith, carrying forward her 'gentle war'. Her last poem, unfinished, was found in her typewriter when she died in March 2007.

Additional Information
52 pages | 8.00" x 8.00"

In One Native Life, Wagamese looks back down the road he has travelled in reclaiming his identity and talks about the things he has learned as a human being, a man and an Ojibway in his fifty-two years. Whether he's writing about playing baseball, running away with the circus, attending a sacred bundle ceremony or meeting Pierre Trudeau, he tells these stories in a healing spirit. Through them, he celebrates the learning journey his life has been.

Free of rhetoric and anger despite the horrors he has faced, Wagamese’s prose resonates with a peace that has come from acceptance. Acceptance is an Aboriginal principle, and he has come to see that we are all neighbours here. One Native Life is his tribute to the people, the places and the events that have allowed him to stand in the sunshine and celebrate being alive.

Reviews
"One Native Life contains sixty-five stories that are divided into four books: Ahki (Earth), Ishskwaday (Fire),Nibi (Water), andIshpiming (Universe). From this diverse selection emerge accounts not only of disappointment and racial discrimination but also of the transformative power of love and caring." - Sean Carleton, The British Columbia Quarterly

Educator Information
Suggested Grades: 9-12
ABPBC

Grades 10-12 BC English First Peoples Resource for units on First Peoples' Story and Place-Conscious Learning.

Additional Information
272 pages | 5.63" x 8.75"

Francis Pegahmagabow was a remarkable aboriginal leader who served his nation in time of war and his people in time of peace, fighting all the way. In wartime he volunteered to be a warrior. In peacetime he had no option. His life reveals how uncaring Canada was about those to whom this land had always been home. A member of the Parry Island band (now Wasauksing First Nation) near Parry Sound, Ontario, Francis served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Belgium and France for almost the entire duration of the First World War, primarily as a scout and sniper. Through the horrific battles and inhuman conditions of trench warfare, his actions earned him three decorations for bravery, the most ever received by a Canadian aboriginal soldier. More recently, they inspired the central fictional character in Joseph Boyden's highly acclaimed novel Three Day Road. Physically and emotionally scarred by his wartime ordeals, Francis returned to Parry Island to try to rebuild his life. He had been treated as an equal in the army, but quickly discovered things hadn't changed back in Canada. As a status Indian his life was regulated by the infamous Indian Act and by local Indian agents who seemed bent on thwarting his every effort to improve his lot. So, Francis became a warrior once more, this time in the even longer battle to achieve the right of aboriginal Canadians to control their own destiny. In compiling this account of Francis Pegahmagabow's remarkable life, Adrian Hayes conducted extensive research in newspapers, archives, and military records, and spoke with members of Pegahmagabow's family and others who remembered the plight and the perseverance of this warrior. Originally published by Fox Meadow Creations, Pegahmagabow emerges again in this new Blue Butterfly Books edition, which incorporates additional material and updates some aspects of this unforgettable story, and the confusion that still surrounds it.

James Nathan and Jake Noland have been best friends for their entire lives. Like most residents in their small northern Gwich’in community, they like to get drunk, get high and sleep around. It helps them forget the past—a horrific past full of painful memories. At times just one bullet to the temple away from a self-inflicted death, James and Jake fumble through life, tormented and haunted by the demons of their residential school abuse.

The decision by one man to publicly disclose his abuse causes upheaval within the community and forces other victims to consider their options: either share their secret and begin healing, or maintain their silence and suffer alone. Raw and gripping, Porcupines and China Dolls is impossible to put down.

Educator Information
Resource for English First Peoples 11-12.

Additional Information
312 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Four chronically homeless people–Amelia One Sky, Timber, Double Dick and Digger–seek refuge in a warm movie theatre when a severe Arctic Front descends on the city. During what is supposed to be a one-time event, this temporary refuge transfixes them. They fall in love with this new world, and once the weather clears, continue their trips to the cinema. On one of these outings they meet Granite, a jaded and lonely journalist who has turned his back on writing “the same story over and over again” in favour of the escapist qualities of film, and an unlikely friendship is struck.

A found cigarette package (contents: some unsmoked cigarettes, three $20 bills, and a lottery ticket) changes the fortune of this struggling set. The ragged company discovers they have won $13.5 million, but none of them can claim the money for lack of proper identification. Enlisting the help of Granite, their lives, and fortunes, become forever changed.

Ragged Company is a journey into both the future and the past. Richard Wagamese deftly explores the nature of the comforts these friends find in their ideas of “home,” as he reconnects them to their histories.

Additional Information
384 pages | 5.20" x 7.99"

Seven Sacred Teachings is a message of traditional values and hope for the future. The Teachings are universal to most First Nation peoples. These Teachings are seen in school communities from coast to coast across North America. They are a link that ties all Native, Inuit and Métis communities together.

The seven teachings include: respect, humility, love, truth, honesty, wisdom and courage. The stories in the book provide an example of how each teaching came to be.

Educator Information
Seven Sacred Teachings has been produced in several languages. This edition is in English and Ojibwe.

This resource is also available in French: Les Sept enseignements sacrés

Tom Longboat was one of the greatest marathon runners of all time and one of the best known athletes in the western world in the early 20th Century. Longboat was an Onondaga who grew up on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ontario. He was an astonishing long-distance runner as an amateur, he set records as a professional, and he served as a dispatch runner during World War One. This book tells the story of one of Canada's greatest athletes.

After living in the city for years, Sandy Lafond returns to her childhood home at the Watishka First Nation reserve to care for her ailing Aunt Emma. Little has changed since she left, a young teen has just committed suicide, a local gang menaces the area, the community is splintered and dysfunctional, and the Métis youth are left restless and frustrated.

Sandy realizes that she needs to do something to unite everyone once more, so she proposes to start a junior hockey team. At first she is met with great resistance first from the band council and then from the team itself, who can barely stop fighting long enough to play hockey.

Drawing on her own past, Sandy steps in as coach and tries to reign in the star player, hot-headed Jeffrey Lambert, a 14-year-old hockey prodigy who just can't seem to stay out of trouble.

Sandy struggles to keep the team and the community together despite crippling odds and the ever-present gang lurking in the background.

And Jeffrey faces a decision that could affect the fate of the team, and his own life.

Additional Information
168 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

Irreverently funny and brutally honest Governor General's Award-winning play about loss and redemption. Cast of 2 women and 4 men.

Exploring a variety of topics-including health, politics, education, art, literature, media, and film-Aboriginal Canada Revisited draws a portrait of the current political and cultural position of Canada's Aboriginal peoples. While lauding improvements made in the past decades, the contributors draw attention to the systemic problems that continue to marginalize Aboriginal people within Canadian society.

From the Introduction: "[This collection helps to highlight areas where the colonial legacy still takes its toll, to acknowledge the manifold ways of Aboriginal cultural expression, and to demonstrate where Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people are starting to find common ground."

Contributors include Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars from Europe and Canada, including Marlene Atleo, University of Manitoba; Mansell Griffin, Nisga'a Village of Gitwinksihlkw, British Columbia; Robert Harding, University College of the Fraser Valley; Tricia Logan, University of Manitoba; Steffi Retzlaff, McMaster University; Siobhán Smith, University of British Columbia; Barbara Walberg, Confederation College.

Suggested use: Grade 12 Law

Authenticity Note: Because its contributions from Indigenous scholars, this book is labelled as containing Authentic Indigenous Text.

Additional Information
436 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"